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Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:00 am
by lsatClay
sundance95 wrote:
lsatClay wrote:Recent law grad. Prosecutor in a territory of the United States. I've been working the traffic docket for the past month, and I've gradually been worked into the felony groups. I should be moving up to SBO soon.

I don't really have a typical day. Mornings I get ready for the upcoming weeks arraignments, evaluate case files, prepare plea offers, and communicate with defense attorneys.

During the lunch hour I usually go to the beach and go swimming, play volleyball, or just eat lunch on the beach. I often get in at 7:30 so I can take an extended lunch.

Afternoons I do whatever traffic stuff is left over and help out with the felony groups, covering for court appearances, doing legal research, doing intakes. Basically whatever is needed.

Usually out by 5:00. As long as I get my stuff done, I feel my boss doesn't really care when I'm in and when I leave. Sometimes I cut out early so I can go scuba diving or fishing before I go home. My boat is like a block from where I work, so it makes things easy.
This sounds like it doesn't suck at all.
If you're not attached to the BIGLAW 160K/YR PRESTIGE!!!/POWER!!!/MONEY!!! crowd, you can live a damn good life as a lawyer. 56k a year ain't nothing to sneeze at.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2014 12:22 pm
by Holly Golightly
I'm a district court clerk in a small courthouse, but my day is pretty different from the other description posted because our docket is 95% civil and we don't have very many hearings. When there's not a trial (which is a rare occurrence even with an incredibly large civil docket), most of my days are spent writing, researching, and talking through issues with the judge and other clerks. I absolutely love it, but if you don't enjoy legal research and writing, the job is definitely not for you. One of the most fun things is when there's a particularly sticky legal issue and the judge and my co-clerks and I will just sit in the conference room and argue about it for hours.

The way my judge distributes work, we each have our own cases and handle basically everything on those cases. We also have an MDL, and those are an entirely different beast. That work gets split up among everyone, because there is way too much going on for one person to ever handle. We don't specialize in types of cases, so I have cases ranging from insurance to habeas to civil rights to products liability to personal injury to breach of contract, and everything in between. We don't do much with discovery since that's mostly handled by magistrate judges, but other than that I work on everything from motions to dismiss through summary judgment and trial.

Trials are exciting, but rare. Twice now I've done a lot of work to prepare for trials (figuring out the proper jury instructions, writing a script for the judge for voir dire, etc.) only to have the cases settle the day before. And one of those, I was absolutely SURE would not settle. In total we've had three trials during my time here. (Judges with a larger criminal docket likely see more.)

In an average week I work 9:00-6:00ish with an hour for lunch, often with the judge. If we're not eating with the judge, I take less time for lunch but I don't have to. No one logs my hours, no one cares how much time I devote to each matter as long as I'm getting my work done, and no one minds if I have to take time off for a personal reason (even though clerks don't get federal leave). Obviously this changes when things are busy. Busy usually means a trial is happening or about to happen. Towards the end of September or March it can also be busy if you have motions that have been pending for a long time, because every 6 months judges have to report any motions that have been pending for 6+ months. I also work longer days if I'm feeling behind or if I'm working on a case the judge has particular interest in.

I don't really have an average day, except that the first thing I do every morning is check the docket report to see what was filed in my cases. A few times a week there are usually small/unopposed motions in a few of my cases that can be handled quickly. Lawyers sometimes call to ask questions; usually those are questions that we cannot answer. Protip: check the local rules and FRCP before you call a judge's chambers to ask a stupid question, and never ask a judge when or how they intend to rule on something. Generally most of my day is usually spent doing research, writing, or editing my co-clerks work and discussing the issues we're currently working on.

I love my job and am very happy I got to do this.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:49 am
by Anonymous User
I'm a 2nd-year litigation associate in one of the smaller of the 40 largest US legal markets (think like Des Moines or Omaha) at what I would argue is the #1 firm in town but what is by any definition one of the top 2 firms in town. Graduated with OK grades from middling law school in the region, clerked, now doing this.

I usually get an early start. This is a farm town, so the clients wake up early and it's not at all unheard of for me to have client calls or emails come in before 8 am (and sometimes before 7 am). Today, I'm in the office at 5:30, but that's because I have a bunch of shit to do. Typically, I'm here about 7:30.

The first 30 minutes of the day is almost ritualistically reserved for goofing off. I review my billing entries for the previous day, catch up on emails, browse TLS and ESPN.com, and drink a cup of coffee (or three). I'm not one of those people who can just "switch on," so this is essential for me.

Generally, I have an idea of what my first task of the day will be, and I like to start with my biggest project. Usually this is either drafting or opposing a motion of some kind in one of the 3-4 cases I'm staffed on. Right now I'm working on oppositions to some discovery motions. Because I'm new, there's a lot of research involved, so often I'll start off the productive part of the day flipping through a treatise while I finish my last cup of coffee.

Once I find what I need, I usually write for about 2 hours. If I'm not doing some kind of pleading, I'm working on a research memo. Some lit associates report almost never doing memos, which I find strange. I probably do 2-3/week.

Around lunchtime, I take a full hour break. I'm religious about this. I need the time to recharge my batteries, and the only way I can get dem billables after lunch is if I'm not hungry or itching to goof off. When I blow through lunch, I end up browsing TLS and billing like 0.5 hours for the whole afternoon. Lunch is generally something I brought to save money, but sometimes I go out to lunch with some of the partners (for whatever reason most of my buds in the office are dudes over 50 - not an ass kissing thing, that's just how it ended up going down).

After lunch, I like to reserve the first hour for taking care of crap that's piled up during the morning. Emailing opposing counsel a slightly re-tooled draft of a settlement agreement, calling back a client, checking to see whether something was served, etc. Then, depending on deadlines, I just keep working on pleadings/research projects.

Almost without exception, I'm out of the office and in the gym by 6 PM. (Keep in mind this is still a long day for me since I start before 8 AM, but it's not bad at all.) In an average month, I bill about 175 hours. It doesn't feel grinding or unsustainable except when I'm working on certain types of exceptionally mundane motions (cough, motions to compel, cough.)

Right now is the calm before the storm though, because I have three cases currently scheduled to go to trial back to back to back in October, December, and then February 2015, so I'm just trying to enjoy it.

End of the day, I love my job. I feel like I get paid to think, read, learn, and write. It's awesome. I'd highly recommend someone check out a regional biglaw firm if you are worried about the grind in legit biglaw. You take a bit of a preftige hit, and the pay certainly isn't $160,000, but I feel like I could do this for 40 years and enjoy my life. One nice thing is we simply don't have enough attorneys to put the new guys on meaningless tasks for 3 years, so I've been to court multiple times, done MSJs, etc. I actually do almost zero doc review.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:31 am
by Sweeny12
Anonymous User wrote:I'm a 2nd-year litigation associate in one of the smaller of the 40 largest US legal markets (think like Des Moines or Omaha) at what I would argue is the #1 firm in town but what is by any definition one of the top 2 firms in town. Graduated with OK grades from middling law school in the region, clerked, now doing this.

I usually get an early start. This is a farm town, so the clients wake up early and it's not at all unheard of for me to have client calls or emails come in before 8 am (and sometimes before 7 am). Today, I'm in the office at 5:30, but that's because I have a bunch of shit to do. Typically, I'm here about 7:30.

The first 30 minutes of the day is almost ritualistically reserved for goofing off. I review my billing entries for the previous day, catch up on emails, browse TLS and ESPN.com, and drink a cup of coffee (or three). I'm not one of those people who can just "switch on," so this is essential for me.

Generally, I have an idea of what my first task of the day will be, and I like to start with my biggest project. Usually this is either drafting or opposing a motion of some kind in one of the 3-4 cases I'm staffed on. Right now I'm working on oppositions to some discovery motions. Because I'm new, there's a lot of research involved, so often I'll start off the productive part of the day flipping through a treatise while I finish my last cup of coffee.

Once I find what I need, I usually write for about 2 hours. If I'm not doing some kind of pleading, I'm working on a research memo. Some lit associates report almost never doing memos, which I find strange. I probably do 2-3/week.

Around lunchtime, I take a full hour break. I'm religious about this. I need the time to recharge my batteries, and the only way I can get dem billables after lunch is if I'm not hungry or itching to goof off. When I blow through lunch, I end up browsing TLS and billing like 0.5 hours for the whole afternoon. Lunch is generally something I brought to save money, but sometimes I go out to lunch with some of the partners (for whatever reason most of my buds in the office are dudes over 50 - not an ass kissing thing, that's just how it ended up going down).

After lunch, I like to reserve the first hour for taking care of crap that's piled up during the morning. Emailing opposing counsel a slightly re-tooled draft of a settlement agreement, calling back a client, checking to see whether something was served, etc. Then, depending on deadlines, I just keep working on pleadings/research projects.

Almost without exception, I'm out of the office and in the gym by 6 PM. (Keep in mind this is still a long day for me since I start before 8 AM, but it's not bad at all.) In an average month, I bill about 175 hours. It doesn't feel grinding or unsustainable except when I'm working on certain types of exceptionally mundane motions (cough, motions to compel, cough.)

Right now is the calm before the storm though, because I have three cases currently scheduled to go to trial back to back to back in October, December, and then February 2015, so I'm just trying to enjoy it.

End of the day, I love my job. I feel like I get paid to think, read, learn, and write. It's awesome. I'd highly recommend someone check out a regional biglaw firm if you are worried about the grind in legit biglaw. You take a bit of a preftige hit, and the pay certainly isn't $160,000, but I feel like I could do this for 40 years and enjoy my life. One nice thing is we simply don't have enough attorneys to put the new guys on meaningless tasks for 3 years, so I've been to court multiple times, done MSJs, etc. I actually do almost zero doc review.
I am hoping to end up in a regional firm—so this has been very interesting. Can you give a ballpark on your salary and COL?

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:37 am
by Anonymous User
Sweeny12 wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I'm a 2nd-year litigation associate in one of the smaller of the 40 largest US legal markets (think like Des Moines or Omaha) at what I would argue is the #1 firm in town but what is by any definition one of the top 2 firms in town. Graduated with OK grades from middling law school in the region, clerked, now doing this.

I usually get an early start. This is a farm town, so the clients wake up early and it's not at all unheard of for me to have client calls or emails come in before 8 am (and sometimes before 7 am). Today, I'm in the office at 5:30, but that's because I have a bunch of shit to do. Typically, I'm here about 7:30.

The first 30 minutes of the day is almost ritualistically reserved for goofing off. I review my billing entries for the previous day, catch up on emails, browse TLS and ESPN.com, and drink a cup of coffee (or three). I'm not one of those people who can just "switch on," so this is essential for me.

Generally, I have an idea of what my first task of the day will be, and I like to start with my biggest project. Usually this is either drafting or opposing a motion of some kind in one of the 3-4 cases I'm staffed on. Right now I'm working on oppositions to some discovery motions. Because I'm new, there's a lot of research involved, so often I'll start off the productive part of the day flipping through a treatise while I finish my last cup of coffee.

Once I find what I need, I usually write for about 2 hours. If I'm not doing some kind of pleading, I'm working on a research memo. Some lit associates report almost never doing memos, which I find strange. I probably do 2-3/week.

Around lunchtime, I take a full hour break. I'm religious about this. I need the time to recharge my batteries, and the only way I can get dem billables after lunch is if I'm not hungry or itching to goof off. When I blow through lunch, I end up browsing TLS and billing like 0.5 hours for the whole afternoon. Lunch is generally something I brought to save money, but sometimes I go out to lunch with some of the partners (for whatever reason most of my buds in the office are dudes over 50 - not an ass kissing thing, that's just how it ended up going down).

After lunch, I like to reserve the first hour for taking care of crap that's piled up during the morning. Emailing opposing counsel a slightly re-tooled draft of a settlement agreement, calling back a client, checking to see whether something was served, etc. Then, depending on deadlines, I just keep working on pleadings/research projects.

Almost without exception, I'm out of the office and in the gym by 6 PM. (Keep in mind this is still a long day for me since I start before 8 AM, but it's not bad at all.) In an average month, I bill about 175 hours. It doesn't feel grinding or unsustainable except when I'm working on certain types of exceptionally mundane motions (cough, motions to compel, cough.)

Right now is the calm before the storm though, because I have three cases currently scheduled to go to trial back to back to back in October, December, and then February 2015, so I'm just trying to enjoy it.

End of the day, I love my job. I feel like I get paid to think, read, learn, and write. It's awesome. I'd highly recommend someone check out a regional biglaw firm if you are worried about the grind in legit biglaw. You take a bit of a preftige hit, and the pay certainly isn't $160,000, but I feel like I could do this for 40 years and enjoy my life. One nice thing is we simply don't have enough attorneys to put the new guys on meaningless tasks for 3 years, so I've been to court multiple times, done MSJs, etc. I actually do almost zero doc review.
I am hoping to end up in a regional firm—so this has been very interesting. Can you give a ballpark on your salary and COL?
With bonus, salary is a hair under $100,000. My cost of living is very low. I just renewed my lease on a 1-br apartment with really nice amenities and with sewer and water included I pay approximately $1,000/mo.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:45 am
by Sweeny12
Anonymous User wrote:
Sweeny12 wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I'm a 2nd-year litigation associate in one of the smaller of the 40 largest US legal markets (think like Des Moines or Omaha) at what I would argue is the #1 firm in town but what is by any definition one of the top 2 firms in town. Graduated with OK grades from middling law school in the region, clerked, now doing this.

I usually get an early start. This is a farm town, so the clients wake up early and it's not at all unheard of for me to have client calls or emails come in before 8 am (and sometimes before 7 am). Today, I'm in the office at 5:30, but that's because I have a bunch of shit to do. Typically, I'm here about 7:30.

The first 30 minutes of the day is almost ritualistically reserved for goofing off. I review my billing entries for the previous day, catch up on emails, browse TLS and ESPN.com, and drink a cup of coffee (or three). I'm not one of those people who can just "switch on," so this is essential for me.

Generally, I have an idea of what my first task of the day will be, and I like to start with my biggest project. Usually this is either drafting or opposing a motion of some kind in one of the 3-4 cases I'm staffed on. Right now I'm working on oppositions to some discovery motions. Because I'm new, there's a lot of research involved, so often I'll start off the productive part of the day flipping through a treatise while I finish my last cup of coffee.

Once I find what I need, I usually write for about 2 hours. If I'm not doing some kind of pleading, I'm working on a research memo. Some lit associates report almost never doing memos, which I find strange. I probably do 2-3/week.

Around lunchtime, I take a full hour break. I'm religious about this. I need the time to recharge my batteries, and the only way I can get dem billables after lunch is if I'm not hungry or itching to goof off. When I blow through lunch, I end up browsing TLS and billing like 0.5 hours for the whole afternoon. Lunch is generally something I brought to save money, but sometimes I go out to lunch with some of the partners (for whatever reason most of my buds in the office are dudes over 50 - not an ass kissing thing, that's just how it ended up going down).

After lunch, I like to reserve the first hour for taking care of crap that's piled up during the morning. Emailing opposing counsel a slightly re-tooled draft of a settlement agreement, calling back a client, checking to see whether something was served, etc. Then, depending on deadlines, I just keep working on pleadings/research projects.

Almost without exception, I'm out of the office and in the gym by 6 PM. (Keep in mind this is still a long day for me since I start before 8 AM, but it's not bad at all.) In an average month, I bill about 175 hours. It doesn't feel grinding or unsustainable except when I'm working on certain types of exceptionally mundane motions (cough, motions to compel, cough.)

Right now is the calm before the storm though, because I have three cases currently scheduled to go to trial back to back to back in October, December, and then February 2015, so I'm just trying to enjoy it.

End of the day, I love my job. I feel like I get paid to think, read, learn, and write. It's awesome. I'd highly recommend someone check out a regional biglaw firm if you are worried about the grind in legit biglaw. You take a bit of a preftige hit, and the pay certainly isn't $160,000, but I feel like I could do this for 40 years and enjoy my life. One nice thing is we simply don't have enough attorneys to put the new guys on meaningless tasks for 3 years, so I've been to court multiple times, done MSJs, etc. I actually do almost zero doc review.
I am hoping to end up in a regional firm—so this has been very interesting. Can you give a ballpark on your salary and COL?
With bonus, salary is a hair under $100,000. My cost of living is very low. I just renewed my lease on a 1-br apartment with really nice amenities and with sewer and water included I pay approximately $1,000/mo.
That's awesome, thanks!

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:04 am
by biglawbust
Junior associate in biglaw lit department:

9:30: Get into the office. Get coffee. Check news. Contemplate career alternatives and wallow in existential crisis. Check my student loan balances.

10:00: Start working. Typically, this means doc review. I open document 1 of 300. I read it. It's an email from Employee A to Employee B about TPS reports. I click "non responsive" and load document 2.

12:00: My brain is numb from doing work I could have done at age 17 and from staring at a screen. I head down to pick up lunch, come back, and eat at my desk. I'd like to get lunch with a friend but I need billable hours so I limit that to once per week.

12:15: Work on researching incredibly specific question of law. Senior associate gunning for partner tells me that "there must be a case on this. I think I've seen it." He's wrong, and I spin my wheels for two hours.

2:15: We're doing a witness interview in California. By we, I mean the partner. So I need to search the database for all important, topical emails he received between 2007 and 2009. I put them in on a flash drive. Finding them is time consuming and I'm worried about missing the April, 2008 monthly expense ratio report email.

5:00: Giving up and hoping that I put all the right files on the flash drive, I go back to doc review.

7:50: Head home and eat dinner.

7:50 - 11:00: Read and respond to various work emails as they come in. Tomorrow, a senior associate would like me to compile a list of documents missing from the other side's document production so that we can put it in a motion. I may get to draft a paragraph of that motion.

Welcome to biglaw!

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:56 am
by dkb17xzx
any project finance lawyers?

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 4:53 pm
by Anonymous User
dkb17xzx wrote:any project finance lawyers?
I do a mix of project finance and leveraged finance, so someone specializing exclusively in projects work might have a different pov. Compared to traditional leveraged finance, projects involve a lot more paperwork and agreements and the structure can vary significantly from deal to deal depending on the underlying project. My work has almost been entirely renewable energy related. In that field, one of the more common structures is a tax equity finance, where the "lender" invests in a project to earn the tax credits. In such an arrangement, the main two documents are the Equity Contribution Agreement and the LLC Agreement (or whatever membership/ownership agreement it is). As a first year, your duties are not too different from a first year in finance/corporate. You turn documents, you update checklists, you perform due diligence on the construction/service contracts, you draft certificates (if borrower side), you draft simpler documents (estoppel certificates; enforcement opinions; etc), and most importantly, you keep track of where everything is (which is pretty important considering there are SO many moving parts).

On a typical, non-closing day:

9:00-9:30 get in the office, grab coffee
9:30-12:00 read email and get working on whatever I need to from the previous night/ that morning; by 12, hopefully I'll have some documents that are done that I can blackline and send over to the senior associate
12:00-1:00 lunch
1:00-1:15 afternoon coffee
1:15-3:30 get comments back at some point and continue working; in my downtime, I browse the web while keeping PLI open so I can get some CLE credit in
3:30-4:30 inevitably something else on a different deal comes up, so I do some side work
4:30-6:30 try to get whatever needs to go out today done so I can send a draft to all parties by 6:00
6:30 if not too busy, I'll go home or to the gym, make a quick dinner
9:00 check my email, see if anything else has come through. If it needs to get done that night, it gets done; otherwise, I wait till the next morning.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:22 pm
by BlueLotus
Any insight from immigration lawyers would be greatly appreciated!

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:27 pm
by 09042014
BlueLotus wrote:Any insight from immigration lawyers would be greatly appreciated!
Show up to court at 9am.

Plead no lo comprende 50 times.

Repeat.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 9:29 pm
by El Pollito
Desert Fox wrote:
BlueLotus wrote:Any insight from immigration lawyers would be greatly appreciated!
Show up to court at 9am.

Plead no lo comprende 50 times.

Repeat.
lololol

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 10:44 pm
by Pleasye
El Pollito wrote:
Desert Fox wrote:
BlueLotus wrote:Any insight from immigration lawyers would be greatly appreciated!
Show up to court at 9am.

Plead no lo comprende 50 times.

Repeat.
lololol

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:02 am
by wreek
I registered just so I could reply to this...

My typical day sounded just like the AUSA guy's day...I was a bit lower than him as I was a lowly city/county prosecutor so I may not be too impressive to you guys but...25 years in the job should be impressive, no? ;)

Anyways...my day also consisted of wiggling out of boring, misdemeanor cases and fixing others screwups. I wanted the nasty cases and usually got them. I was pretty good at snatching cases from other attorneys, too. Senority has it's *sshole benefits. I was one of the best trial attorneys and became the go to guy for retrials and trial prep. Unofficially. So I'm doing my job plus other numbskulls job, too. Don't get good at trial, seriously: you'll be expected to fix everything. I don't care what others claim, there's always a "fixer" in the office. Anyway, I spent a lot of time telling junior attorneys they were idiots and butting heads with other idiots. I also spent considerable time butting heads with bosses over boring cases I didn't want to take. Yep, I'm one of those kinds of people - the kind who butts heads and argues with everyone for the sheer hell of it. You know love us! I may have been known as the fixer but I was also known as a huge douche canoe! Can't you tell by my ever so charming post? ;)

After 25 years, I bounced. Without warning. Started doing trial consulting. Ended up working for the same people I bounced from. I was trying to get out of this profession as I was getting bored to death, but unfortunately, I'm good at it. At least I work for myself now.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:18 am
by Anonymous User
Criminal prosecutor, county- moderate metro area. Misdemeanor unit. First year post-grad.

Usually in by 7:30am. I'm also usually one of the first people in.

Depends on the day- sometimes trial , sometimes hearings, sometimes file management.

Our unit does specialty courts (Like drug court) so sometimes have to do one of those dockets.

Have 70-100 cases at any given time, so there's always something to be dealing with but I'm never doing the same thing at the same time.

On non trial, non hearing days, I spend a large chunk of time processing new cases (we make our own charging decisions, so we get police reports and decide what to charge), and managing the cases set for trial (before getting this job, I had no idea how many resets of trial dates occur because of unavailable witnesses.)

Out by 5:30-6 on a usual day, by 7:30 or 8 if I have something major (hearings or trial) the following morning.
Work from home sometimes evenings/weekends, but not a ton.

Make about 65K a year. Fairly high cost of living area , but not awful (I'd say a decent 2 bed apt is about $1800-2000/month and a decent starter house in a fairly nice area is about $350k.)

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:55 pm
by JVK
Any tax lawyers out there?

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:06 pm
by FSK
Would love to hear from someone doing Tech Transactions.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 3:08 pm
by Danger Zone
JVK wrote:Any tax lawyers out there?
Also curious

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:46 pm
by Anonymous User
Danger Zone wrote:
JVK wrote:Any tax lawyers out there?
Also curious

not strict tax, but biglaw (not NYC) T&E/private client junior associate:

8am arrival (not NYC, boss often beats me in)
8-9 - coffee / respond to internal and external emails (external = clients and their accountants, tax preparers, family offices, etc., handle 80% immediately, confirm a few with senior associates, research answer to 1 substantive question in Bloomberg BNAs (very little westlaw research), respond to accountant citing revenue ruling, with cc to assigning partner)
9-1 - drafting of various estate planning/business succession documents for review by senior associates/senior counsel; post 2012, the vast majority of the work is for ultra high net worth families ($500M+), helping to restructure family business entities, for eventual discounting and leveraged sale to long-term family trusts for descendants and/or charity
1-130 - grab takeout lunch w nearby associates, return and eat in office (1-2 client/marketing lunches per week - much more early biz development in private client world)
2-4 - continue drafting documents, field frequent calls from partners (who do zero drafting) with updates on various matters and questions on docs I drafted. partners are always calling from the road between client meetings. consult with senior corporate associate re: transfer of hedge fund interests to family trust. ensure our docs jive with fund docs and comply with all recent income, gift, and estate tax rulings.
5-6 - meet with senior counsel to review edits to docs, make edits, and send to partners with execution instructions for client
6-630 - facilitate document execution at office for clients who swung by on their way to airport, provide brief summary of docs, answer questions, serve as notary
630-730 - respond to missed / non-urgent emails from the day, attend to pro bono matters, and organize longer term projects

730pm departure - as a rule, urgent deadlines are rare. the work isn't the most exciting but the lifestyle is nice. the groups are VERY leanly staffed, so there is definitely an expectation to develop your own business after a few years

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:17 pm
by wert3813
Anonymous User wrote:Criminal prosecutor, county- moderate metro area. Misdemeanor unit. First year post-grad.

Usually in by 7:30am. I'm also usually one of the first people in.

Depends on the day- sometimes trial , sometimes hearings, sometimes file management.

Our unit does specialty courts (Like drug court) so sometimes have to do one of those dockets.

Have 70-100 cases at any given time, so there's always something to be dealing with but I'm never doing the same thing at the same time.

On non trial, non hearing days, I spend a large chunk of time processing new cases (we make our own charging decisions, so we get police reports and decide what to charge), and managing the cases set for trial (before getting this job, I had no idea how many resets of trial dates occur because of unavailable witnesses.)

Out by 5:30-6 on a usual day, by 7:30 or 8 if I have something major (hearings or trial) the following morning.
Work from home sometimes evenings/weekends, but not a ton.

Make about 65K a year. Fairly high cost of living area , but not awful (I'd say a decent 2 bed apt is about $1800-2000/month and a decent starter house in a fairly nice area is about $350k.)
thanks. How much lrw stuff do you do? I would imagine with a case load that big it's less research or more just case management? How long do people spend on misdemeanors generally before they get bumped up? The people who are doing murders/rapes/big fraud if any/etc. how many cases do they have at a time?

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:19 pm
by El Pollito
It never ends.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:42 pm
by JCougar
Desert Fox wrote: 4:45 - DF how is your thing going. "GOOD" (already has it done but I don't want another assignment)
TCR is always "almost finished," especially if you don't already know or they haven't specified yet when they want it done.

That way no one will ever freak out that you're never going to be done on time, but it also hedges against them giving you something new or thinking you're not busy.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:09 am
by 071816
this is neat

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:14 am
by JCougar
Anonymous User wrote: I picked this agency mostly because I did not want to deal with Congressional appropriations ever again, and it was a good move with the sequester and furloughs in other agencies which we have avoided.
I'm currently being fucked over because of this. At first, I thought it was just temporary, but it seems like it's been so long now, who knows.

It's good to hear a positive story, though.

Re: Lawyers: What's Your Typical Day?

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:36 am
by dkb17xzx
Anonymous User wrote:
dkb17xzx wrote:any project finance lawyers?
I do a mix of project finance and leveraged finance, so someone specializing exclusively in projects work might have a different pov. Compared to traditional leveraged finance, projects involve a lot more paperwork and agreements and the structure can vary significantly from deal to deal depending on the underlying project. My work has almost been entirely renewable energy related. In that field, one of the more common structures is a tax equity finance, where the "lender" invests in a project to earn the tax credits. In such an arrangement, the main two documents are the Equity Contribution Agreement and the LLC Agreement (or whatever membership/ownership agreement it is). As a first year, your duties are not too different from a first year in finance/corporate. You turn documents, you update checklists, you perform due diligence on the construction/service contracts, you draft certificates (if borrower side), you draft simpler documents (estoppel certificates; enforcement opinions; etc), and most importantly, you keep track of where everything is (which is pretty important considering there are SO many moving parts).

On a typical, non-closing day:

9:00-9:30 get in the office, grab coffee
9:30-12:00 read email and get working on whatever I need to from the previous night/ that morning; by 12, hopefully I'll have some documents that are done that I can blackline and send over to the senior associate
12:00-1:00 lunch
1:00-1:15 afternoon coffee
1:15-3:30 get comments back at some point and continue working; in my downtime, I browse the web while keeping PLI open so I can get some CLE credit in
3:30-4:30 inevitably something else on a different deal comes up, so I do some side work
4:30-6:30 try to get whatever needs to go out today done so I can send a draft to all parties by 6:00
6:30 if not too busy, I'll go home or to the gym, make a quick dinner
9:00 check my email, see if anything else has come through. If it needs to get done that night, it gets done; otherwise, I wait till the next morning.

this is helpful. thanks! Based on your knowledge, what's the outlook for PF? growth all over? only in asia / africa / MENA? and what's the outlook particularly for the renewable energy field? I'm interested in infrastructure (roads / telecoms) and renewable. I've been told that secured credit is one of the most important classes I can take for PF -- any other recommendations?